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Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Well, Wednesday is that annual culmination of the year-around effort to convince kids why they should give the next four/five years of their life to you and your school. Signing day. Coaches mostly hope for very few surprises, unless it's one of those good ones.

Paul Johnson and staff expect to sign upwards of 21 kids, and could be as low as 19 my guess. In all fairness, this class really cannot be considered Paul Johnson's first. PJ has had a grand total of about 3-4 weeks with his staff in place to make an impression. Recruiting is a year-long process. It's about relationships and trust. It's hard to build that in 3-4 weeks. Chan Gailey's first class had a few gems in it like Chris Reis, but truthfully it was a disaster from the standpoint of long-term contribution. Very few of the players made the 2-deep. Very few made it the full 4/5 years in the program. Of course that was the year Coach Gailey decided to stick with the Dolphins as OC until his season was over. This time around, PJ has probably even less time to make things happen.

As always, you can NEVER truly judge the quality of a recruiting class until year 4. Only in hindsight can you say whether they "panned out". From all signs, this is a balanced class. A bunch of guys with good rankings. Only one guy considered "4/5 star", but only two below "3 star" status. Frankly, I think PJ did fine considering the time crunch. He kept most of the guys that were on-board and brought on some guys that have a good shot at showcasing themselves in the triple-option system................. So a bunch of guys who have a chance to.................................